Learning stuff since 1964

digitalcitizenship

Dan Schawbel of Personal Branding Magazine asked me to write a brief article on personal branding and how it might relate to K-12 education. I found it interesting that he would be interested in a K-12 perspective so I felt like it was an opportunity to further bridge the gap between education and the rest of the world. While the business world calls it “personal branding” the term “digital citizenship” or “digital footprint” is the synomous term in education. The idea of students developing their “brand” or identity is a burgeoning concept in education.

I’ve been following Dan’s blog and shared items in his reader for about the past 2 months. It’s interesting to notice where we do and don’t overlap on the idea of personal branding or digital footprint.

I tried to record the audio from my presentation last week but I must have messed something up. It’s likely for the best since I was able to condense a 50 minute presentation down to about 18 minutes. After removing the videos, discussion and excessive rambling, this is what you’re left with; the slidecast below as well as the mp3 for the podcast portion.

Disclaimer: Most people who would bother to read this blog might get this and most who don’t read this won’t.

Purchasing your domain name will be, and is becoming a big deal. Even if you don’t blog or wiki or whatever. If you exist, you should be claiming your identity. Whether google is making us more stupid or not, it is almost the de facto standard for finding out about someone.

Google yourself. Do it now. What comes up? Nothing? Good stuff? Somebody with the same or similar name? If someone else is googling you, would they know the difference? For those that answered nothing, you might be safe for now. But as google becomes better and better at indexing, even the smallest digital footprint will appear. That small footprint might be a forum posting from 3 years ago. It might be a newspaper article. It might be something that really doesn’t reflect who you are.Following the lead of Ewan and Will, I went out and looked for shareski.com and shareski.ca. shareski.com was already taken by a company that buys domains and sells them at inflated prices. Most domain registrars charge between $7 and $20 a year for … Read the rest

Here’s a parent who, although obviously tech and internet saavy hadn’t realized the power of the internet for his own kids:

I’ve written about my kids literally hundreds of times and published dozens of photos of them. But, I’ve always drawn the line at showing their faces. Every picture I’ve posted is a shot from the back, a photo with the face turned away, a costume disguise, you name it- I’ve become a master of the private, public persona. So I have to admit, that when I saw the YouTube video and Tasha waltzing up to the camera, I was a little aghast.

But although he was “aghast” at first quickly changed his view.

But then a light bulb went off. She was excited that the video was going online and that sense of enthusiasm was evident in each of the kids as they made their presentation.

If you asked anyone who's ever presented at a conference about web 2.0, Read/Write Web or whatever you want to call it, they will tell that the most common type of question or comment from teachers goes something like this:

"Yah, but what about posting kids pictures online? Aren't you concerned about their safety?"

This question can often bring an important conversation about learning to a grinding halt. As tired as I am of addressing this issue, I realize it will continue to be an issue until we hammer the research and facts at people at a relentless pace. Well that's one way to handle it anyway. I also realize I work in a school district that has a very enlightened view of this thanks to the work of many teachers who have been doing cool and important things with kids for a while now, but I'm still frustrated with the lack of knowledge folks have about this issue and the influence of traditional media that fosters the endless and needless hysteria. This is … Read the rest